Monday, October 03, 2005

RI Radio, and thanks

A proper update in a day or two, but RI radio is officially launched today, and can be heard here. It's an eclectic 10-hour mix, featuring something to annoy everyone. I'll try to rotate a few songs a week to freshen things up a little. If you enjoy the station, please consider supporting it with a donation as you are able.

And thanks very much for your messages of sympathy. My mother passed away peacefully Saturday afternoon.

"Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not."Epicurus

"How do I know that the love of life is not a delusion; and that the dislike of death is not like a child that is lost and does not know the way home?"Chuang Tzu

Your mother's work is done here, but her legacy is woven like threads through your own life, and therefore through the lives of those you inform, inspire and provoke. In thanking you for your work, I also thank her.

From an avid reader(not poster), the loss of of one means the life another. I learned that when my youngest daughter was in the hospital being diagnosed with RSV and my grandfather was brought into emergency with pain in the groin. I had my talk with him and he asked how Ciera was,I assured him she was ok and was to receive treatment. So he told me to make sure the girls(my 2 daughters)are taken care of[sic], which I assured him of. He had an heart aneurysm that had burst and he pass on while the youngest was being help.It all happens for reasons we are still trying to digest.

My deepest sympathy for you and your family, Jeff. What a tower of strength you are. Life works out in strange and mysterious ways as we are witness to the birth of your child nearly coinciding with the passing of your mother.

Take some measure in comfort in knowing that the "good god(s)" are surely watching and guiding you.

Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death." And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Having lost both my own parents, and as a cancer survivor am the only one left now from my support group, I've learned that mourning takes a lot longer than people think, especially in our quickie, pop-psych-laden culture where you get three days off for a funeral, if you're lucky. Other cultures are wiser in knowing what grieving is all about. I went to my first Iranian funeral a few years ago and while the younger Americanized kids were embarassed by the dead man's elderly sister's keening and throwing herself in the grave, I'm sure she felt better afterward than the rest of us 'stiff upper lip', 'modern' types did. Give yourself all the time you need and follow your own heart in what you have to do to heal. I actually had someone say the year my mother died "But she died six months ago! Aren't you over that yet?" She was my mother for 33 years...no, I wasn't. Mourning takes as long as it takes.

Gone to the Unseen

At last you have departed and gone to the Unseen.What marvelous route did you take from this world?

Beating your wings and feathers,you broke free from this cage.Rising up to the skyyou attained the world of the soul.You were a prized falcon trapped by an Old Woman.Then you heard the drummer's calland flew beyond space and time.

As a lovesick nightingale, you flew among the owls.Then came the scent of the rosegardenand you flew off to meet the Rose.

The wine of this fleeting worldcaused your head to ache.Finally you joined the tavern of Eternity.Like an arrow, you sped from the bowand went straight for the bull's eye of bliss.

This phantom world gave you false signsBut you turned from the illusionand journeyed to the land of truth.

You are now the Sun -what need have you for a crown?You have vanished from this world -what need have you to tie your robe?

I've heard that you can barely see your soul.But why look at all? -yours is now the Soul of Souls!

I have no poem to quote, or strong words to say, but i have supported you and your ideas every step of the way since i discovered this site, and will continue to do so for a long time.my thoughts and full support is with you.......

Death is nothing at all.I have only slipped away into the next room.I am I and you are you,Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.Call me by my old familiar name,Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.Put no difference in your tone,wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow,laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.Pray smile, think of me, pray for me.Let my name be ever the household wordthat it always was.Let it be spoken without effort,without the trace of a shadow in it.Life means all that it ever meant,it is the same as it ever was.There is unbroken continuity,why should I be out of mindbecause I am out of sight?I am waiting for yousomewhere very nearjust around the corner.All is well

my sincerest sympathy. for any parent, the worst fear is that they will survive their child. that means we children must deal with the grief of losing our mother and father. The best gift we can give them is to do well and honor what they taught us.